Pariah by Dave Zeltserman review

[Editor's note: Because it always seems like public libraries need some love here is a quote from the email that Nerd sent me:  "Craziest thing is, Amazon has it listed as an October 1st release but my local library has two copies of it already. Go ****** County Library!"]

Dave Zeltserman might wanna call a lawyer and start working out a fucking restraining order against yours truly. Why, you ask? Well, after reading just two of his books, dude’s got himself a vicious, rabid fucking fan in the Nerd of Noir. Pariah is the second novel in a loose trilogy for Serpent’s Tail about men just released from prison, the first being the indisputably hardcore Small Crimes. But where Joe Denton in Crimes starts out looking for something resembling redemption only to find that he is mentally incapable of it, Pariah’s Kyle Nevin is a man who is seemingly unable to do anything but destroy and maim. This novel is absolutely pitiless, riveting, challenging, and noir to its black, rotting soul. Simply put, Pariah is the type of shit the Nerd of Noir wishes would sweep the crime awards. If anything, dude is pretty much guaranteed a Nerdie.

Kyle Nevin used to be the most fearsome gangster in South Boston until he was betrayed by his boss, Red Mahoney, getting his ass sent up in the fucking clink for eight long years (he refused parole, figuring he’d rather just be out than fucking around with a P.O. and drug tests or whatever the fuck). He gets released and hooks up with brother Danny, a former badass who is now living a square’s life outside of Southie with a good, straight woman and a solid, straight job. Kyle goes out of his way to bring his brother back into the life with him, promising Danny millions if he goes in on a kidnapping plot with him, money Kyle plans to use to fund his search for the traitorous Red Mahoney. Of course, the novel being the blackest of noir, everything goes to fucking shit toot-fucking-sweet.

First off, let the Nerd warn you, dear reader, that it is probably best if you just take your favorite critic’s word on one point: you really don’t wanna read the blurbs and plot descriptions available for this book. I know it’s tempting – you pick up a book when you’re already reading something else, maybe you bring the book into the john with you when you’re taking a quick shit, peruse the back and front covers, see what your favorite authors have to say about it, see what kind of publicity they were going for or whatever. Don’t do it. I suggest you do like in high school when you were handed a new-ish textbook and the teacher told you to have it covered so you go home and cut up a grocery bag, fucking cover every inch of it so Mr. Hapka doesn’t make you pay five bucks at the end of the school year for a bent corner on your fucking algebra text. I realize that this is a paperback and that that might be kind of a bitch to do, but trust the fucking Nerd, dear reader: you don’t want this shit spoiled for you.

Because no fucking joke: Pariah will surprise the shit out of you. And not in lame ways like “oh, it turns out he’s doing it all for his sick mother” or “oh, Kyle has schizophrenia and the whole novel actually takes place in a retarded kid’s snow globe” type of bullshit. No, this shit will surprise you with just how far Zeltserman is willing to go – how depraved Kyle can be, how disturbingly satiric the writing can be, how absolutely uncompromising and dark a novel can be while delivering on all the great pulp levels you need to keep blasting through it.

So in the interest of letting you discover this novel for yourself to some degree, the Nerd is gonna keep this short. If I haven’t gotten your attention yet, this shit probably ain’t for you, which is a fucking shame. If the major newspapers and critics have any balls at all, this will be on their top ten lists – and not in some sub-category like “Best Mystery Novel” or some condescending bullshit list like that. This is the real deal, dear readers. Go fucking get yourself a taste.